by J. E. Taylor
Todd’s jaw snapped shut and he offered a tight-lipped smile before speaking. “They can help you at the front desk.” He pointed toward the hotel and Kyle followed his directive, heading toward the hotel without a glance back.
The kid’s nervous gaze bore a knot of fire between his shoulder blades and he grabbed a towel on the way through the pool area, pressing it to his head and offering an embarrassed smile to anyone who looked his way.
The lobby was quiet except for a few stragglers and hotel employees, in his haste he didn’t scan for danger like he normally would. Instead, he walked straight toward the desk. The same clerk who had signed him in the day before raised his eyes from the computer screen and swallowed. Licking his lips, he tried on a smile that didn’t work, and before Kyle could turn around, they grabbed him, slamming him against the desk and slapping cuffs around his wrists.
“Kyle Winslow, you have the right to remain silent, anything you say or do will be used against you in a court of law…”
He turned, glancing at the FBI badge hanging from the agent’s pocket and memorizing the name.
Special Agent Jack Murphy.
Another target on his ever-growing hit list.
Chapter 88
Steve’s eye opened and his focus wavered. He blinked, glancing around the hospital room. His vision blurred and he lifted his hand to wipe the crust off his eyelashes. The cast on his right arm prevented him from reaching his face and he stared at it, trying to understand where he was.
Slowly, through the drug-induced stupor, the memories flooded in. He shifted his gaze to the chair next to the bed. His father was sound asleep with a book on his chest.
“Dad?” Steve’s voice croaked from his dry throat.
Adam Williams jerked awake, the book sliding to the floor. “Steve.” His eyes filled with tears.
“They’re dead.” Steve began to shake.
“Jennifer’s still alive.” He swallowed and studied his hands. “She’s in a coma, son.” Looking into Steve’s eyes, he continued, “And it doesn’t look good.”
“Did they catch him?”
Adam nodded his head. “Yes.”
Relief opened the floodgates and the sobs began. Steve brought his un-bandaged hand to his face, covering his eyes and feeling the fabric of the eye patch for the first time. “I should have killed the bastard when I walked in the door.” The words spilled out between sobs.
Adam moved to the edge of the bed and pulled his son into his arms, holding Steve while he cried.
When the tears subsided, Steve pulled away and wiped his face.
Adam sighed and took a seat in the chair again. “You’ve been in and out of consciousness for a few days.”
Steve glanced at the cast, raising his eyebrows.
“You had a greenstick fracture.” Adam said. “There was some nerve damage and they aren’t sure how much dexterity you’ll have.” He took a deep breath. “Your left ankle is broken as well.”
“What’s with the eye patch?” Steve asked.
“Shrapnel from the explosion pierced your eye. They’re not sure if you’ll be able to see once the patch comes off.” Steve nodded, opening his eye as the information his father fed him sank in. “Jenny’s alive?”
Adam nodded.
Steve sat up and threw his legs over the side of the bed, pulling the IV out of his arm. Gritting his teeth, he stood on his throbbing ankle. “I want to see my wife.”
Adam shot out of his seat. “Get back in bed,” he ordered.
“No. Take me to Jennifer.” He took a step toward the door and the dull pain turned sharp. Air hissed between his teeth as the wince caught him off-guard. His father grabbed the wheel chair sitting in the corner and Steve collapsed into the seat when his father pushed it behind him. “Take me to Jenny. Please, Dad, I need to see her.”
With a sharp inhale and a nod, Adam pushed Steve to the Intensive Care Unit, parking the wheelchair next to Jennifer’s bed. “I’ll be waiting outside,” he said before he stepped out of the room.
Jennifer’s head was wrapped in bandages and her face held blue and purple tones. An oxygen tube protruded from her nose and an IV stemmed from her arm with two bags hanging from the T-bar on the bed. The air in the room held the sterile antiseptic quality that he remembered waking to in the ICU after the Brooksfield incident. Steve closed his eye for a moment, listening to the steady beep of the heart monitor mixed with the slight inflection of her breathing.
“Jesus, Jenny,” he whispered, opening his tear-filled eye.
Steve reached out and took her hand, bringing it to his lips. Scanning her unconscious form, fury overrode all sense of sorrow. “The bastard’s going to get the death penalty for what he did to you and Sam,” Steve said through a clenched jaw. “I swear.”
The pain of his mistakes blurred his vision and he bit his lip, stifling the sob and swallowing the burning tears. He leaned forward and planted a kiss on her cheek. “I’m so sorry, Jenny.” His voice quivered and he laid his head on her shoulder, gripping her hand as his harsh sobs filled the desolate hospital room.
The End
Hunting Season
(Book 3)
"Unstoppable, breath stealing, and terrifying all at once." - Cat Connor, author of killerbyte, terrorbyte, and exacerbyte.
"Hunting Season goes where few venture, mixing a compelling crime thriller with supernatural forces. The action and drama is thick and fast and I guarantee you will not be able to put this book down." - Poppet, author of Seithe and Darkroom.
Prologue
“What do you mean he escaped?” Steve Williams shot to his feet, the constant whoosh of the breathing apparatus drowned by his sudden, sharp inhale. Pain tremors shot up from his throbbing ankle, the cast providing enough inertia against the tile floor to slide, and he tumbled back in the chair with his heart hammering against his rib cage.
“Kyle escaped during the transfer. A semi sideswiped the police van, rolling it into a ditch on the side of the highway. By the time the cops got there, he was gone,” Jack Murphy hissed into the phone, his anger bleeding through the line.
“Where?”
“Just outside of Concord.”
“Fuck,” Steve muttered. He glanced at his wife, the bruises from Kyle’s attack still visible on her pale skin.
“We’ve got crews scouring the woods right now. We’ll get him.”
Steve lacked Jack’s confidence and he balled his hand into a fist around the phone. “You’d better, because if I find him first, I’ll kill him.”
Chapter 1
Fubar.
The thought produced a quiet humph and Steve studied the falling snow outside the window, waiting. His fingers rose to the eye-patch, grazing the pliable material that covered the hollowness of the socket underneath. A shiver rippled through him and he clenched his teeth.
He flexed his right hand. After six months of physical therapy, he still did not have the dexterity to shoot straight and his arm constantly ached where the bone had splintered. His leg screamed whenever a low-pressure-system arrived; making his slight limp more prevalent, and right now, it throbbed in time with his heartbeat. Sighing, he returned his attention to the swirling white flakes.
Dr. Montgomery, the FBI sponsored psychiatrist assigned to his case, slipped into the room and took a seat, opening Steve’s file. He adjusted his spectacles before resuming where they left off. “You need to deal with what happened, Steve.”
“The son of a bitch is still out there.”
Dr. Montgomery leaned forward and folded his arms on his desk.
They had been through this routine a dozen times in the past few months. Dr. Montgomery, always calm and reasonable, and Steve, always falling back to his unimpassioned crime scene analysis, avoiding the trauma he endured.
Steve watched the snowfall for a few minutes before continuing. “I’m an FBI agent. I should be out there looking for him.” He attempted to skirt his emotions, again.
“And what does the husban
d and father part feel?”
Steve’s jaw clenched. “I’m not sure I want to answer that.”
“Why not?”
Steve turned toward Dr. Montgomery. “Because you’ll never clear me for active duty.”
“Anger is a perfectly normal emotion Steve.”
Steve scoffed and turned, catching his reflection in the glass. A single unwavering azure eye stared back. He ground his teeth so hard they ached before meeting the doctor’s gaze. “He blew up my daughter.”
“Keep going.” Dr. Montgomery said.
“I want to kill him!” Steve closed his eyes, willing the rabid dog inside to stay caged. He drew a deep breath and blew it out slowly, fogging the windowpane in front of him.
Steve turned his head toward the doctor. Fury coursed through his veins. He clenched his jaw and pulled the air in through his nose before he continued. “I should have shot him when I walked in the door.”
“Why didn’t you?”
That question plagued Steve at least a dozen times a day since the explosion. If he had, Jennifer wouldn’t be lying in a hospital bed with no hope of recovery. Instead, he paused and that cost him his daughter and his wife. “He had a detonator in his hand and he said if I didn’t put the gun down, he’d blow up Samantha.”
Steve’s jaw worked overtime grinding his teeth. Anger pulsed through his body, making the tips of his fingers and toes tingle and his skin burn.
The rage consumed Steve. Raw, unbridled, unstoppable rage.
Rage because he was stupid.
Rage because his baby girl was dead.
Rage because Kyle escaped.
Steve’s breath came in short gasps. His jagged nails dug into the soft flesh of his palms, tempering the rage a notch. Slowly, he uncurled his fists, stretching his fingers as he stared at the floor.
“The fucker’s still out there. And he isn’t done with me yet.”
Chapter 2
Steve left the session with Dr. Montgomery and headed over to the hospital. He sat, slipping Jennifer’s pallid hand in his.
The steady pulse in her wrist echoed the constant blip of the heart monitor. Both grim reminders, mocking him with a constant cadence of life where they said there was none. He blinked away the sudden mist that formed over his good eye, biting his lower lip to stave off the sorrow. Steve’s eyes closed against the vision of his beautiful wife lying there like the shrouded corpse of Snow White. He prayed numbly, his mind playing out a desperate litany to whatever God would hear him.
“I swear, Jenny, if I ever find that bastard I’m going to rip his heart out with my bare hands.”
Six months in the ICU left her nothing more than a skeleton with stretched pale skin amidst the tubes and wires that kept her alive. Despite breathing without a respirator, her brain activity was sporadic at best. The only movement that appeared on the graph coincided with Kyle’s murders; otherwise, the line was endlessly straight. The visions continued, even in her catatonic mind, and every time the blip appeared, someone died.
Jennifer stood from her crouched position in the corner and crossed to Steve. Laying her hand on his shoulder, she stifled a sob when it passed through him with ghost-like quality and she cursed the wasted body trapping her in this living hell.
“I love you, baby, please don’t give up on me,” Jennifer whispered.
She reached for him again, to push his bangs out of his eye, but her hand had as much effect on his black locks as a trail of smoke. Not even a strand moved.
Pain seared her soul and she crumpled at his feet.
Was this her damnation for not being able to save their daughter?
To spend all eternity near Steve and never be able to touch him, to feel his strong arms wrapped around her, his tender lips on the curve of her neck, his peppermint breath on her tongue?
She had to get back—she had to tell him Samantha’s death was not his fault. She had to tell him she loved him, no matter what. She had to tell him about...
The door banged open, interrupting her train of thought.
Joe Curtis shoved the door open and glared at Steve like he was a giant insect in need of extermination. Stiffening, Steve prepared himself for whatever bullshit Joe was dishing out this time.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in therapy?” Joe slammed his tray down on the table.
“I got out early.”
“This is your fault!”
Steve ignored him, the pulse in his temple blinding as anger simmered just below the boiling point. He exhaled. The rush of crushed bones under his fist flashed against his closed eyelids, satisfying the need burning in his skin. The mini-mind-flick contained his anger for the moment.
“Don’t do this, Dad, please don’t do this again!” Jennifer climbed to her feet voicing her disdain on deaf ears.
“She wouldn’t be lying here if you hadn’t screwed up her life.”
He counted to ten silently before he met Joe’s glare, but it wasn’t enough to calm the beast inside. He shot from his chair, rocketing across the room until he stood toe to toe with Joe. “You want to repeat that?” A satisfied smile formed on his lips when Joe stepped back.
“You screwed up her life,” he repeated, stabbing his finger against Steve’s chest.
“No, he didn’t!” Frustration filled her form and she wished to God one of them would hear her and snap out of this continuous testosterone battle.
Raw willpower kept him from breaking the finger that poked his chest. The inferno raged, edging his vision with flares of red as he met Joe’s brazen glare and pressed forward, crowding him. “Don’t you dare!”
“You put her in danger, you’re responsible for this!” Joe waved toward the bed. “And you’re responsible for my granddaughter’s death!”
Steve slammed Joe against the wall, his hand clamped around his father-in-law’s throat. “The fucker staged his own death. Had I known he was still alive, I never would have left Jenny alone.”
“If you hadn’t married her, she’d still be alive!” Joe croaked under the pressure of his strained vocal chords.
“I am alive. I’m right here!”
Steve let go and stepped away, putting distance between them. “She is alive.”
“Her body is, but her mind has been gone for the past six months.”
“Dad I’ve been here all along, please don’t do this!”
“She’s still in there and I’m not pulling the plug.” He pointed toward the door. “Now get the hell out of here before I get a restraining order.”
Joe stormed out of the room, leaving Steve alone with the steady sound of the machines.
Jennifer turned toward Steve longing to wrap her arms around him and wipe away the pain in his eyes.
Like a hurricane making landfall, despair decimated him, constricting his lungs, bowing him over. He slumped in the chair, cradling his head in his hands.
Jennifer had to be in there somewhere, she had to be.
“Please God,” Jennifer prayed.
He clutched her limp hand and the silent mantra played on. After what seemed like hours, he glanced at his wife, wiping his tear-stained cheeks.
“I need a miracle.”
Chapter 3
Steve shot to his feet at the sudden high-pitched beep on the brain wave monitor, reaching for his gun and blinking the sleep out of his eyes. When his hand fell on nothing but his shirt, he glanced around the room getting his bearings. The heart monitor bleeped sporadic and fast and Jennifer’s eyelids opened. Opaque eyes, covered with the film of clairvoyance. Dead eyes like a corpse.
A tremor started in his toes and slinked its way up his spine, causing the exposed skin on his arms to curl into bumpy knots.
“Shit.” He flipped his phone open and hit the speed dial. “Jack, she’s having another one.”
“How long do we have?”
Steve listened to the staccato beat of her heart, the monitor showing the frantic red lines crossing the screen. The needle on the brain monitor swayed back and for
th, covering the entire paper readout, matching the pace of her heart.
He didn’t have an answer for Jack.
“How long?”
“I don’t know. When she was having them in New York it was a window of a couple of hours.”
“Goddamnit!” The sound of a palm hitting the desk accompanied the curse.
“Where was the last one?”
“San Francisco.” Jack answered. “But that was a couple of months back. He’s been quiet lately.”
Jennifer stared at the empty shell on the hospital bed and shivered along with her husband. Her mind locked between the dull hospital room and the bedroom murder scene like an obscene split screen. Blood dripped down the walls and Kyle’s evil chuckle brought goose bumps to both her disembodied spirit and the form on the bed.
Jennifer’s eyelids drooped, settling down again along with her heart rate. The brain monitor returned to the solid unmoving line along the middle of the paper. Whatever vision consuming her ended as abruptly as it began.
Steve inhaled. “Like clockwork. A couple of months and then he has to kill. I wonder how he’s controlling the urge between murders.” He studied Jennifer. “Any hits correspond with the other murders?”
Jack didn’t answer right away.
“Well?”
“Steve, this isn’t your case anymore.”
Jack’s unwillingness to share information brought the blood rushing to his cheeks. “Jack, he killed my daughter.”
“You are not active, Steve. And even if you were, I wouldn’t discuss the particulars with you. It is not your case.”
“Come on, Jack.” Steve’s teeth clamped together, frustration tingled in his fingers as he squeezed the cell phone.